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"Marasha's Journey" © Jim Weidman |
Each day, I spied on Marasha from a different branch -- for variety's sake, I tried to convince myself, but the truth is, I wanted to absorb her beauty from every angle.
I didn't know her as Marasha then, of course, but as "the woman." In centuries past, she and her dragon would have been my enemies. My people would have hunted her in a pack, charging forward on the backs of great white tigers. After slaying her and the beast, we would have returned to the village in triumph, wearing dragon's teeth on silver cords!
But those days were past, abandoned in the ruins of my village along with the rest of my people's history. What remained was curiousity and longing.
I should have revealed myself long before, just walked out into her clearing and introduced myself while the dragon was hunting. I should have put myself at her mercy while we were yet children fleeing our ravaged homes.
Instead, I tracked her for years, and our meeting was an accident.
The branch I chose that day was narrow and high, higher even than the top of the dragon's head, but with a clear view of the stream where she bent over to wash her hair. I was shifting against the tree trunk when I felt Meelaht turn his enormous head and stare up at me.
I froze. For a long minute I held my breath and kept my eyes on Marasha. The eyes have a shine, you see, and they'll catch the light if you let the sun at them. But from that angle, they should have been shielded, no more noticeable than a beetle on a leaf.
When I was finally forced to breathe or faint, I breathed with the swaying of the tree, as I had been taught as a child. There was no chance Meelaht could have seen me, no chance at all. I was a part of the tree!
Yet I felt the dragon's eyes boring into my mind. I felt his energy, his vitality. I even imagined his voice.
What do you want, then? Go to her if you will -- but do not harm her, Samu, or I will burn you like the rabbits she cooks for her meals.
I did not move, thinking I had imagined these words. Dragons could only speak to dragonkind. I knew him from hearing Marasha say his name, but no one had said my name for many years. He could not have known me.
Samu, I grow impatient. You watch and watch, but nothing more. Must I knock you out of that tree?
Slowly, slowly, I allowed my eyes to creep toward the dragon. I swear he was looking directly at me!
I jerked. It was only a tiny move, a slight shift to my left, but the undersized limb cracked and I crashed down through the tree canopy. I managed to catch a branch and break my descent, but pulling myself to safety was another matter; the fall had nearly ripped my arm out of the socket. I looked around for a vine or a branch, something to help me secure myself, but there was nothing.
But suddenly, she was there, standing spread-legged on top of her dragon with an arrow aimed at my throat. If I hadn't been about to cry from the pain, I might have laughed. Marasha was as proud as Meelaht, at a fraction of his size. He could have snapped me in two, burnt me to a crisp, or thrown me halfway to the moon, but she threatened me with her bow and arrow and her fierce, fierce eyes.
"Don't the Panteran men bathe?" She reached out with the tip of her arrow and flipped a chunk of my mud-caked hair. It fell back and poked me in the eye.
I should have asked her to help me up. At least I should have returned her insult with a witty response about her spiky headpiece, fashioned from shed spines from Meelaht's back.
Instead, I said, "How do you know I'm not one of the invaders?"
"Your eyes are pale. Your hair is golden. You ride a white cat. What else would you be? You do not jangle and growl like the barbarians."
She likes you.
I looked down at the dragon, then up at Marasha, who did not yet appear to have come to that conclusion.
"Seua is a tiger," I said, "and my name is Samu."
I've never been accused of quick thinking, before or since.
**
Meelaht breathed fire, but Marasha was all ice -- to me, at least.
"Don't climb any more trees until this is healed, or you could do permanent damage," she ordered as she bound my arm to my chest, effectively immobilizing me. And that was the kindest thing she said to me for many days.
Marasha must have seen us before, or she would not have known I rode a white tiger! Shame seeped into me. Obviously, Meelaht had alerted her of our presence. Had she been watching me as I bathed and hunted? I grimaced and settled back against a tree.
Meelaht lounged on the other half of the clearing, soaking in the final rays of the sun. Seua paced behind me, pausing often to glare at one or the other of our new acquaintances and rumble a warning.
"How am I supposed to hunt for food with my arm all tied up like this?" As I said it, I felt like a whining child.
"Have your cat bring you something. He hunts, doesn't he?" She walked away.
"Seua is a tiger, and he isn't 'mine'. It's a great honor that he chose to travel with me."
"Well, then ask his highness to bring you some food," she called over her shoulder. "Or graze like a beast. Eat berries. Whatever you want."
Seua snarled a reply and moved up by my shoulder to inspect her handiwork with his nose. When he was satisfied that she'd done no harm, he wrapped his body around me as he had every night since the invasion that had stolen my people away from me. Meelaht curled around Marasha in much the same position.
Seua was like a protective fog, Meelaht a concealing shadow.
That night, my dreams were dominated by dragons whispering in my head, burning trees out from under me, swooping toward me with Marasha astride as I hung helplessly by one arm. She skewered my eye with a blazing arrow, and I cackled at her arrogance as I crashed through a hundred branches to my death. Meelaht and Seua tumbled on the ground, tearing at each other with claws and teeth. One time, I was inside Meelaht's jaws, struggling, strugglingÉ
Both Seua and I woke cranky after all my tossing. The moon still hung in the sky, but the sun was also up, and it glared through a thick fog, turning everything bright white. My breath caught in my throat and I sat up. It was the union of the dark and the light, the moon and sun, as my Nanai had taught me.
Before the invasion took her from me, Nanai walked a stone path by the waterfall every night. One time I pleaded for her to stay away from the slippery path, "Seua says the moon is a wicked spirit."
Tigers don't talk, but they also don't take well to insult, so Nanai just laughed and smoothed my hair.
"The moon," she said, "is soul companion to the sun, as your mother is companion to your father. How would you have been born without them both?"
Her words, though cryptic to a child, reassured me. After that, I walked with her to gaze up at the moon and wonder whether it really had a soul. But I had never seen sun and moon in the sky together until that day in the dragonglade.
This must happen each morning at this same time, I marveled. How sad that they only find each other under the veil of the fog!
In time, a voice rose out of the mist, timeless and directionless, in a wordless song. Marasha was singing! Tears wet my cheeks, as they do now when I remember how it sounded from her lips. She sang away the moon and the fog, until I could see her kneeling in the middle of the clearing, arms lifted to the morning sky. Meelaht sat behind her, his own eyes raised in a similarly worshipful attitude.
Her voice died away, and after I felt I had waited a respectful amount of time, I walked to her side. I felt awkward standing beside her graceful body, and I think I even shifted from foot to foot.
I should have told her then how beautiful her voice was, or how I loved the way her black hair glistened and flowed across her shoulders when she loosed it from that spiny headpiece.
Instead, I asked, "Where did you learn that song?"
"My people sing the moon to sleep every day. It's The Prayer to the Moon," she said.
Curious. "My Nanai woke me with that song every morning. She called it The Birth of the Sun."
Nanai's voice was high and scratchy, though, not warm and smooth like Marasha's. I had never known any voice could so entrance a person.
Marasha gave me a look that I couldn't decipher -- confusion, maybe -- then she turned and walked away.
"I'd like to stay in the glade a few more days," I said, hurrying after her, "or until my arm is feeling better. It wouldn't be safe for me to travel now."
"It's not my glade," she said. "You can stay if you want. I can't do anything about the nightmares, though. This is a dragonglade, sown with the teeth of dragons to keep our enemies away."
I started to ask how she knew about the nightmares, and stopped. Meelaht knew, so she knew.
She likes you. Meelaht told me again. Marasha glared at him.
**
A few days turned into several weeks. Even after I was able to remove the bindings on my arm, it remained so painful that I almost wished I hadn't. A few times Marasha shared a rabbit when she was feeling generous, but I grew thinner eating berries. Meelaht regularly told me that Marasha liked me, and she did seem to be warming up a little.
Seua did not warm up to either of them. He continued to pace nervously and growl at any perceived offense, occasionally swiping at Meelaht to provoke him. It had never been in his nature to trust others, but I had also begun to suspect he was jealous of our new acquaintances. For so many years we had had only each other, and now he had to share my attentions!
Then one day when I woke, there was no trace of pain in my arm. The sun was relentless, drying the fog almost before it was above the trees. It was too hot to wrestle, too hot to fly, too hot to hunt, so we lounged around the clearing, moving with the shade as the sun crossed the sky.
"I'm going to the stream to cool off," Marasha said finally.
As always, she talked past me, as though she was addressing the trees, but I took it as an invitation. When I joined her in the water a few minutes later, she actually splashed me playfully. Meelaht flopped down in the middle of the stream, diverting the flow like a mountain, and Seau took to a huge rock, disdaining the water. He preferred to bake in the sun.
"Ever play Sea Monster?" Marasha asked.
Without waiting for an answer, she dove toward me, tackling me and dragging me under the water almost before I was able to take a breath -- almost! Her arms around my upper body were surprisingly strong, and we sank straight to the bottom. I managed to free one arm and pry her off long enough to poke my head out of the water for another breath of air. She came up beside me, black hair streaming down into her laughing face.
The idea of Sea Monster, I gathered, was to try to drown the other person.
So I let her get her breath -- though she would probably argue that she was giving me a break -- and then I threw my arms around her and flopped back into the water, letting our body weight carry us under again. In no time at all she was loose and back on top of me, this time yanking me off-balance at the ankles.
We were so involved in our game that we paid no attention to our companions until Meelaht's roar interrupted us. On the shore, Meelaht and Seua were wrapped together, tearing and snarling at each other. Seua had both paws wrapped around Meelaht above the shoulders, while Meelaht whipped his head back and forth to dislodge the tiger.
For half a second, I actually thought were playing, too. Then I realized Seua's paw was covered in blood, surely his own. Without his pack, the tiger was no match for the dragon; Meelaht was obviously trying not to hurt him.
"Seua! Stop!"
I don't know why I yelled like that, since I had never ordered him to do anything, but he didn't listen to me anyway. Marasha had gained the shore and was rushing toward them, pelting Seua with rocks and screaming curses. I caught up and snatched the next rock out of her hand.
"They can work it out themselves, Marasha! Stop that, you'll only make him angrier!"
She tried to yank her arm away, but I locked my fingers around her wrist. Before I knew what was happening, she and I were rolling on the ground, too. My recovering arm gave her a strength advantage, but I still weighed twice as much and once I was on top of her I easily used my leverage to pin her down. She twisted and snarled like a wild animal, almost bucking me off a couple of times. I had no idea what to do with her, so I just sat there, waiting for her to either calm down or wear out.
To my surprise, when she stopped struggling she began sobbing.
"Get off of me! Get off!" She turned her head, I think trying to hide her tears in her hair.
"Not until you promise to behave. Look at me!"
My injured arm was beginning to ache, so I lowered myself until more of my weight was resting on her body, and I put my face close to hers. My golden hair tumbled down to mix with her black hair, and I felt her soft breasts pressing against my chest and her breath on my cheek. The scent of her filled my nostrils. Then she looked back into my eyes, and I felt like I was falling into her. It was a strange and delicious sensation.
I should have kissed her then. There was never a good time for that later, the moment was just never right again.
Instead, I said, "I never noticed before. Your eyes are the color of rich earth."
She whispered, "Your eyes have the clouds in them."
I let go of one hand and stroked her cheek, so soft against my pale fingertips. "Your skin is so brown. You must have been touched by the sun."
To this day, I don't know what I was looking for in her eyes, only that some part of me was reaching out to some part of her. What I found was a connection greater than any kiss, though I did not immediately realize it.
You are like another part of me. You are the part that makes me whole.
The words surged into me along with a sense of tenderness. Confused, I thought it was Meelaht inside my head again, until he said, You see? She likes you.
**
You had no right to share the dragonbond with him, Meelaht! No right!
I had every right. I am the dragon, and I share the bond with whom I please.
They argued silently on the other side of the glade, but their voices shouted in my head as loudly as if they stood in front of me. Marasha stomped and fumed. She ripped prairie grass from the ground and twisted it apart, flinging it at me.
Take it back Meelaht! Remove it, or I will leave you here by yourself.
I can't take it back, Rasha. The dragonbond is forever.
Where the dragon's voice in my head had seemed strange, the full-fledged dragonbond was torturous. Meelaht's calm sent cool waves across the agony of Marasha's punishing rage. It wasn't the anger that pained me, but the accompanying assault of memories, thoughts, related feelings that overwhelmed me with their depth and intensity. Finally, she collapsed on the ground, shoulders slumped, head in her hands.
Why did you do this to me?
I did it for you, Rasha. He is the other half of you, the missing piece of your soul. Now he can complete you, and you will be happy.
I don't want--
She didn't finish a formal thought, but Meelaht and I both knew what she didn't want. I simply understood that she was scared to disappoint me, scared to lose me, scared to live a different life than she had always known. She feared that I would reject her.
And something else... In the time that it took her to glance up at me, I remembered...
...Marasha trembling in the crevice, her arms wrapped around Meelaht's soft stomach. Her legs braced against the opposing wall held them high out of view of the invaders marching steadily by with their fireless glowsticks.
The scent of their bloodlust made her want to vomit. They walked with their heads high, reeking of pride, while the battle frenzy poured from them like rain from a cloud, soaking their clothing, pooling around their feet. Could they not smell themselves?
A rock dug into Marasha's back, and Meelaht whimpered, echoing her pain. Marasha had hidden here often enough -- it was the only place she could escape the clanwomen determined to mold her into a proper wife -- but she'd never done it while bearing the extra weight of a newborn dragon. He was small for his size, but heavy for a child of ten summers.
It's alright, Meelaht, we're safe here, she thought.
He did not answer, but she hoped he understood. Without the training and rituals, she didn't even know if they could form a dragonbond. She soothed him with her hand, in case he could not hear her.
Metal weapons clanked and clothing swished. Anything that noisy would never survive Neyamath, Marasha promised herself. One had to be very quiet and dark to hunt, to steal and escape, even to eat unmolested on Neyamath. These things were all noise and light and shininess.
-- Nanai's hair was on fire, and I didn't understand why. The cooking fires were cold this time of day. The cubs wailed in their dens. --
After the last of them marched past, Marasha wall-climbed down and crept back through the passage the way they had come. The cries of Meelaht's siblings gradually died out behind her, and the smoke came, carrying an altogether different stench. She did vomit, then, but she did not cry. Never that.
-- My Nanai's hair was burning, her clothes in flames, but all of her screams were for me: Run, Samu! Hide in the trees! Seek the help of the dragonkind! --
Smoke chased her out of the cave, and Marasha dove into a thicket, protecting Meelaht from the thorns as best she could. If only he could fly already! The barbarians following her were probably too stupid to know how to track them, yet Marasha did her best to keep their trail light. The clanwomen could never find her unless she wanted them to, why should these creatures be any different?
But of course they lived in little huts, while she lived among the trees and in the dragon caves. People were too clingy. Everyone asked for or demanded something. Everyone expected something. She disdained their expectations, rejected their demands! She did not want to be one of them and desired neither their kindness nor their approval.
Yet, when she reached the cliff's edge and peered through the last line of trees to see how she might signal help for the dragons, she choked. The village below was a ruin, flames gouting skyward, spewing black smoke across the sun.
-- The cubs yowled and raced for the woods, but the adult tigers rushed the invaders. The barbarians met their roars and teeth with blood and fire. The cubs disappeared among the trees, but their wails stuck in my ears. --
Strange silver birds rained down out of the sky. They were round and shiny, like the sun. They fell everywhere, spewing barbarians across the land.
But where are the people, Meelaht?
There was no one. No screams, no frightened children. There should have been something -- a barking dog, a bleeting sheep, at least -- but the only sound was the thump of the silver birds and the harsh shouting of the barbarians. She almost vomited again, looking down on the dead village, the village of her dragonkin.
Marasha turned and crashed back through the forest, leaving smoke and village behind. She did not look back.
-- I watched from the trees until the last coal died and the village was a pile of stone and ash. The barbarians climbed back into their silver birds and flew away. I watched until there was nothing left but me and Seua. --
Embedded in Marasha's memory of the invasion on her village was a bitterness that demanded revenge for the destruction of Neyamath, a searing retribution that could only end in death. Her obsession with vengeance, I realized, had nearly consumed her desire for companionship. Her bitterness tangled in my own memories, awakening forgotten anger and hatred. Or maybe it was her anger and hatred, I couldn't tell. I choked on the taste of it.
Meelaht looked at me, and my heart jumped in my chest.
Well? he asked.
What?
We have decided to destroy the barbarian invaders. Will you join us?
Why had I thought Meelaht would feel any differently? All his siblings, thirty-seven hatchlings, had been butchered in their nests and burned. That he and Marasha had met no other dragons or dragonkind in all their years of wandering meant that they were the last, or at least there were now so few that they may never meet. A dragon might live for centuries, but Marasha would not, and after she died of old age, Meelaht would be alone.
Did I not have this same wish for vengeance? I searched my heart, but uncertainty bubbled to the top.
Will you join us?
I refused to answer. Seua nudged me with his head, sensing my turmoil. I put my hand on his shoulder and we left the glade.
Seua and I spent a sleepless night by the stream. I sorted through Marasha's memories and Meelaht's thoughts to try to discover my own feelings. Though I had never considered the idea of attacking the invaders, the idea did hold a certain attraction. They had destroyed my village, my Nanai, the very history of my people. Like Marasha and Meelaht, Seua and I were the last of our races. Exhaustion clouded my ability to distinguish their feelings from my own. I simply could not decide.
But in not deciding, I had cast my vote. When the morning came, we left the dragonglade together, never to return. Marasha did not turn around, but her mind remembered.
It was the most beautiful place she had ever seen, blessed by sun and fog and carpeted with Blue Peepers and thick mosses.
She was fifteen summers old by the time she settled in that glade, and she had fully bonded with Meelaht. This is a skill that none but dragonkind can claim, the ability to bond with another, sharing not only mental speech but feelings and memories. But sometimes she liked to practice talking out loud, anyway, in case she came across another survivor.
"Let's stay here forever, Meelaht."
I want to fly, Rasha. Meelaht gazed at the sky. I love this place, but it is so small. I belong in the sky.
Already he was nearly full-grown and so large that he had to be careful not to hurt her when they played. His scales covered him in black armor that shone indigo in the sun.
"Alright, then, someday soon," she promised.
Each morning they woke under a blanket of ground fog, having slept a peaceful sleep, a forgetful sleep. All day, they romped among the flowers, ate berries and caught fish from a nearby stream. Meelaht learned to fly and Marasha to ride on his back. She taught him how to wrestle, and he taught her to tell by scent the sex of a deer, and if it was a doe, whether it was in rut. At night, the song of the bullfrogs lulled them to sleep.
Part of her truly wanted to stay forever, but she knew they were only passing through.
**
In just a few days, I felt like I knew her more intimately than I knew myself.
Marasha's mouth watered every time we passed blackberry bushes, but her favorite food was boiled goose eggs with mint leaves. Fairies' Knots reminded her of a village girl who had brought her a bouquet of them the day of the invasion. When I massaged her shoulders, her thoughts calmed, and when I tickled her under the arms, she experienced a few moments of perfect joy. I would have tickled her relentlessly if she would have allowed it, but she would never take more than a few minutes before becoming angry.
As we plodded toward our chosen destiny, I relished what I learned about her through the dragonbond. I woke early to hear her morning song, cherishing the rise and fall of her voice. I memorized her scent and the sway of her hips when she walked. I washed her hair, wrestled with her, and learned to ride atop a dragon. Even at night, when we curled up with Seua and Meelaht, I could feel her presence as though we were right beside each other.
When there was no tickling, no blackberries or goose eggs, no immediate joy, the darkness bled through our bond. These days my own thoughts were clogged with the smell of screaming hatchlings and burning flesh, the panic of watching the deaths of our villages.
Is it always this way, Meelaht? Will I always feel her every thought and memory?
Marasha had been in a black mood for three days and insisted that we travel almost constantly. Seua still limped from his battle with Meelaht, and we made slow progress on the ground while she and Meelaht flew in circles. Marasha's impatience bled through the bond, and all my efforts to break her out of her depression ended in arguments.
You will always feel her thoughts and memories, yes. But they may not always be so angry and hopeless. Already they are less so than they have been for many years.
Already?
Since she met you. She still believes our deaths lie at the end of this journey, but at least now she is not determined to make sure that it happens. There was a time that she looked forward to death.
Meelaht had a way of making our conversations private, something Marasha and I were never able to duplicate between ourselves, but Marasha always knew when we were hiding from her.
Stop talking about me, she ordered.
We need to rest, Marasha. Let's stop here, I said.
Another day and we'll break out of the forest. I can see the desert from here. Their village is only a few weeks into the desert.
All the more reason we should rest now. Better to rest under the cover of the trees.
She didn't answer, but Meelaht wheeled and dove for the trees. Seua and I followed and squeezed into the clearing beside them.
"I don't think we're all going to be able to sleep here," I said.
"Well, it was the biggest clearing until the desert."
It was, Meelaht agreed.
"You need more space than us. Seua and I crossed a stream back a little ways -- we'll sleep back there," I said. I started to walk away, then offered, "I'll wash your hair if you like."
Some part of her wanted to say yes -- even the idea of it relaxed her momentarily -- but she shook her head. "No. I'll be down in the morning to wash my face and fill my waterskins."
She might refuse to let herself relax, but I wasn't going to deprive myself of the only bath I might get for weeks. I stripped, rinsed my clothes, and draped them in a tree. This close to the desert, I could count on everything being dry by morning. Seua rumbled at me and went off into to hunt by himself.
Whenever I bathed, I wished for my Nanai's lilac soap, but as usual sand from the streambed would have to do. I submerged, scrubbed, and rinsed my hair, pulling out the tangles. I was removing three days' stubble from my chin with my belt knife when I heard a sound and turned to see a shadow creeping between the trees.
I'm glad you changed your mind, I said.
Marasha seemed confused. I told you, I'll be down in the morning.
I froze, blade against my cheek. The figure that emerged from the trees was not Marasha, but a man pointing a barbarian weapon at me. I remembered from the invasion that the weapons were used from a distance, like the bow, but much faster. I wondered if I could dive into the water fast enough to escape.
Be careful, Marasha. There are barbarians nearby.
He said something to me in his harsh language and motioned with his weapon. I thought he wanted me to throw my knife away, so I dropped it in the water and kept my hands in the air. Then a woman and a child stepped out of the trees further downstream and I realized he was herding me away from them. I followed the point of his weapon until I was out of the water and he was between his family and me.
Almost I felt sorry for them -- almost. I could feel Marasha and Meelaht approaching, and I knew these people would die. But they had invaded Neyamath and killed everyone I knew. Maybe these were not the warrior barbarians who had massacred my village, but the warriors had cleared the way for these. They would die easier than the thousands who had burned to death.
Seua and Marasha arrived at the same time. Seua snapped the woman's neck with a swipe of his paw, while Marasha kicked the man in the back, knocking him to the ground, and jumped on top of his back. In the second that she yanked his head up, a net of conflicting feelings reached out through the dragonbond and grabbed my heart: hatred for the race that had destroyed her life, sympathy for the child sobbing beside her mother's body, fear of her own death, admiration for the man waiting to die.
Then she drew the knife across his throat, and true sorrow enveloped her. She cleaned her blade and walked off in a daze. It was her first barbarian kill.
**
The child was a funny-looking little thing, with skin paler than mine and a mess of orange hair full of twigs and burrs. Her eyes were yellow, like Seua's, and her teeth, when she bared them to snarl at me, were pointed, like some wild animal.
She's fierce for such a small thing, I told Meelaht, as I wrestled her onto Seua. Seua turned his head and nipped at one of her kicking legs; her eyes grew wide and she scrambled up into a proper sitting position. I smiled; he'd done as much to me when I refused to mind Nanai.
She's not afraid of you, but she'll mind Seua, Meelaht said. Keep an eye on that one. She is the size of a three-year-old Panteran, but she is more clever and devious. Marasha is right, you should leave her here. She knows how to hunt for her food.
No. If she doesn't grow up as one of us, she'll grow up to be our enemy.
I'd seen that before. A tiger cub could nurse off of a pack animal if its mother died during birth, and when the tiger grew up it would protect its surrogate mother. Turn the same cub lose in the wild, and it would come back to hunt anything that looked like a meal.
She's already our enemy, Marasha said.
She's a child, and children can be trained.
Well, you train her, then, and keep her away from me.
I named her Ahlong, "little dragon." In my village, it was a nickname given to rebellious boys, but she would never know the difference.
That night, Ahlong lay against Seua's stomach staring at nothing. I knew how she was feeling, but she met all my attempts at comforting her with growls and kicks. Unused to sharing my sleeping spot, I wiggled all night trying to decide how to lay and avoid offending either of them. Finally I got up and took a walk. Even if the child managed to escape, Seua could track her in minutes.
"I'm glad I didn't let you wash my hair," Marasha said, coming up behind me. "If I had, I wouldn't have been able to help you."
"I'm glad, too. I might have died at the hand of the first enemy we met. Wouldn't that be ironic?" My laughter felt hollow. "You don't feel any better, though. I thought you would."
"Neither do you."
I turned and put my arms around her shoulders, drawing her to me. She slipped her arms around me and leaned her head on my chest. "But one or both of us will die if we go through with this, Marasha. Maybe Seua and Meelaht, too. The barbarians slaughtered everyone in both of our villages -- why would the two of us be any different?"
She pushed back and looked up into my face, her eyes fierce. "This time, we will take them by surprise. We'll fight together, back to back, warriors for our people! We'll pick them off one at a time when they go out to hunt, if we must, until they're destroyed. Meelaht will not let us die."
"I don't want to lose you. We only just found each other." I stroked her hair, enjoying the feeling of her in my arms. I couldn't imagine living without her.
"The risk to me is not your choice, Samu, it's my choice. This is something I must do."
"What if I don't let you? What if I tie you up and throw you across Seua and take you far, far away?" I was only playing with her then, trying to lighten the mood, but she struggled out of my grasp and shoved me away.
Then you will have me to deal with, Meelaht said as Marasha stomped off.
**
Meelaht?
What do you want, Samu? I'm trying to sleep.
I need to talk to you about something. Privately.
I'd never asked this of him before, and I wasn't sure he could keep a secret even if he shut out Marasha, but I needed to talk to someone.
Alright, now I've offended Marasha for you. What is so important that you interrupt my sleep?
How can you let her ride off to fight the barbarians when you know she'll die?I thought you didn't want her to die.
If Meelaht could have sighed in his mind, that's what it felt like he was doing. You misunderstood me. I want Marasha to be happy. I want her to want to live. Look in her heart again and you will see that is already accomplished. She wants to live now, because she has found you.
I didn't have to look into Marasha to know it was true. Meelaht knew both of us far better than we knew each other. Then why would you let her die?
Stupid boy! I'm not letting her die. We go to fight the invaders to show them that they can't just fall on Neyamath and destroy everything. We go to show them that someone will always fight back, that we are not spineless and stupid. It is the right thing to do, the honorable thing.
And what will it accomplish if all of us die? I wondered.
I hope it will teach them a lesson. Neyamath is not the only world. Perhaps they will treat others differently.
I don't care about teaching them a lesson, Meelaht. I want to take Ahlong and Marasha and live in peace. I want to build a hut near a stream, with a fireplace and a table.
You may yet do that, Samu, I'm not saying you can't. But right now there is something else that must be done.
My mind kept returning to the memory of Ahlong's father. If he had wanted to kill me, he had plenty of time before Marasha arrived. Instead, he tried to protect his family, as my father tried to protect me.
If we attacked their villages, we would be doing to them what they had done to us. I looked at the ferocious little creature rolled up under Seua's paw. I wanted to teach her serenity and brotherhood. I wanted to teach her to love and nurture that which her people had hated and destroyed. In a way, that would be vengeance.
Marasha, when you go into the desert, I won't be going with you.
I know, she said. I've always known.
**
In two days we reached the opening to the desert canyon. The trees dwindled into leafless bushes and firm soil gave way to shifting sand. Cover between here and the forest outside the invader settlement would be mostly boulders and caves. The canyon walls rose up on either side into the wind-formed shapes I'd always known; in the distance, the invaders' towers impaled the clouds.
If I followed the canyon east and then north, I'd come upon the place where my village once stood. Marasha would go east and then south. Her village had been so close to mine, and yet we'd never known each other. I mourned for those few lost years we might have had.
Seeing the canyon again after all these years made my stomach ache, and I was glad I had decided not to go with them. Even the memory of the old places would cripple me while I was fighting, making me nothing more than a liability.
Marasha and Meelaht decided to begin traveling by night, so we would have one day to rest just inside the trees.
I should have spent that time staring into her eyes, tickling her, washing her hair, savoring her scent. I should have held her to my chest until the minute that she rode off on Meelaht. I should have kissed her.
Instead, I sat by myself brooding, with my back against a tree. The pain was unbearable. The day dragged on and then it confounded me by ending too soon. When the sun fell behind the canyon walls, Marasha came to me.
"It's time for me to leave," she said.
I held her for a moment, released her. Ahlong threw a rock that hit me in the knee, and cackled.
"You have your own battle ahead of you," Marasha said, smiling at Ahlong.
"Will I still feel the dragonbond, even when you're far away?"
"No, after a few days it will fade. But you'll know if anything -- happens," she said.
"I'm not worried," I lied. "Meelaht won't let you die." Another rock hit me in the head, and Seua growled a warning.
Marasha smiled and touched my cheek. "You could still kill her if you want. I won't think less of you."
"I've had enough of death. I'm going to build a hut with a fireplace, and wait for you to return. And I'm going to teach Ahlong some manners, or Seua will. You won't even recognize her when you see her the next time."
For several minutes we just looked at each other, wrapped in our mingling thoughts. Then she turned and hopped onto Meelaht's back. Dragon and rider rose into the air and soared off toward the canyon.
I could not look away, I just kept watching them until they faded into the shadows of the barbarian towers. I watched them until they were only a memory.
Marasha could not look back. I knew she could never look back. But I also knew she would return.
Chris Africa is a veteran writer and editor, with years of experience in Web site development as well. In November 2003, she founded Ultraverse e-zine of science fiction and fantasy. For more information about Chris Africa, browse her personal web site, Parola Scritta. Feel free to contact her at either of her e-mail addresses: baiewola@yahoo.com or editor@ultraverse.us
© 2004 Chris Africa
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